New agricultural display space planned for Les Caches Farm

Artist’s impressions of the building were shared with members at the trust’s AGM.

‘This would be so we could house agricultural items from the costume museum and make Les Caches Farm the agricultural area,’ said president Mike Brown.

‘The plans that we were talking about at the last AGM, we decided on reflection were the wrong plans, so we’ve had revised plans drawn up. We have funding in place, we have had a preliminary application in with the planners. I’d like to think we’re going to go ahead with it, subject to planning and the availability of builders.’

Laura Sebire, from architects CCD, attended the meeting and said it was a great opportunity to get the trust members’ feedback on the designs at an early stage in the project.

‘We have received positive pre-application feedback from the Planning Service,’ she said.

‘They described the proposed building as ‘reasonably and well related to the existing buildings and together with its scale and design, the building is likely to have limited impact on the character and openness of the area.’

The AGM saw Mr Brown and vice-president Sara-Jane Lampitt re-elected for further three-year terms and a number of new board members elected.

The trust had been struggling to fill a number of vacancies, which led to an appeal for volunteers, but after the AGM, three out of four have been filled, and Mr Brown was confident the final place would also soon be taken up.

‘We’ve got a very good honorary secretary. We’ve got a very good property manager and we’ve got a very good general councillor,’ he said. ‘We have got somebody lined up for the remaining place as treasurer who is coming to observe at our next council meeting, and hopefully by the end of the meeting, we will have filled the final place.

‘At least half of the people who got in touch came from our appeal in the Guernsey Press.’

Mr Brown added that the AGM had been one of the best-attended he could remember.

In his annual report, rather than talk about how successful events or the shop had been, he had decided to talk about what went on behind the scenes.

‘For example, I talked about the work we’ve done at Le Moulin de Quanteraine to alleviate the flooding problem there,’ he said.

‘I talked about the need to live within our means and to preserve our reserves, so that we can guarantee the future of the trust for another 60 years. Because I think that’s one of the prime responsibilities of council.’

Mr Brown said they had did have one motion from the floor, which members had to vote on.

‘It was suggested by one of our members that we should charge an admission fee to the costume museum, which the council don’t believe we should,’ he said.

‘This motion was overwhelmingly rejected, so we’re going to keep free entry to the museum.’